What Must Be Said (Or Else It Festers)
by trufflemores
Summary: 4.20. Cisco and Barry have a longer talk on the balcony after Cisco breaks up with Cynthia.


"You okay?"

Standing at the edge of the balcony, Cisco looks at his hands. "You want me to say yes, don't you?"

"No." Barry grips the railing and looks out over the cityscape. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Everything."

Cisco huffs. "You're sorry," he repeats, "that the love of my life was born on a different world in an alternate universe? Or are you sorry that my only power against DeVoe is useless without her?"

"Cisco—"

"I'm useless here, Barry," Cisco says with an unfriendly laugh. "I can't even stay on my own two feet against DeVoe. I can't _help_ you. I'm worse than helpless – I'm a liability. I'm the last thing you need right now."

"That's not—"

Cutting in, Cisco says, "You wanna give your speech right now, don't you? 'That's not true, Cisco. You're part of this team, Cisco. We couldn't do it without you, Cisco.' You can. You already do. So tell me, Barry – what are you really sorry for? That I'm a failure?"

Barry waits. It burns in him to stay silent, but he senses that it's important.

Obligingly, Cisco goes on. "I was shy and unexceptional as a kid. I missed the deadline for my first-choice college application and went to a two-year technical school instead. I was underqualified for my STAR Labs' job by about eight years. Worse, I was the teacher's pet. Hartley was right to despise me. I would have despised me – an Ivy League graduate watching the rookie-amateur sneak in to steal all of the master's praise. I felt like I didn't deserve what I'd been given, and I had to fight to prove that it was mine." Shaking his head, Cisco says, "The day Joe came to me and told me about Wells, I wanted to disbelieve him. But I knew, even then, that what he was saying was true. It had always been too good to be true.

"But I wanted to believe that it was true." Audibly choked up, Cisco admits, "I wanted _so badly_ to deserve that life. To be regarded with _respect_ , treated like an equal among peers rather than the water boy who snuck into the huddle and hoped nobody would kick him out. Wells defended my position. He liked to single me out at luncheons and other events, insisting that what I was doing was important. At the time I thought it was generous, letting the new kid sign his name first on the scientific paper. But the spotlight was painful, too. If it wasn't for Ronnie and Caitlin and Wells, I wouldn't have kept coming back to work.

"You have no idea what it is like to receive an undeserved award. How it wears you down. How it makes you hesitate to go to work because you're afraid to see your coworkers. They'll see right through you. They'll see that you were a mediocre student without a cancer-curing patent to justify the gold-plated path you've been told to walk. I always felt special, and as much as I enjoyed the validation, I couldn't stand the fact that I hadn't earned it.

"Dante—" Cisco pauses, coughs. Barry sees the shine in his eyes, even in the dim lunar light. "Dante earned everything. He earned awards, he earned praise. He earned a 3.9 and the right to attend his number one college. He earned my parents' love." A deep, soul-shattering sob. Carefully, Barry settles his hand on Cisco's right shoulder. Cisco doesn't shrug it off. Barry remains silent. "They wept for him. Would they do the same for me? I'm scared they wouldn't cry."

Weeping silently, Cisco insists, "I don't want to be someone's charity case for the rest of my life. I don't want to feel like my parents love me because they're supposed to. I don't want to do things because I'm given the tools and clearances that I didn't earn. I don't want to be this person anymore."

With great care, Barry draws Cisco closer to himself. It's not a hug, but they're pressed side-to-side. He can feel Cisco shaking.

"And then – and then I finally find a thing that _does_ make me exceptional, but I'm scared of it, because it can hurt people. I tell myself every night that it'll be fine if I never use it, but I _want_ to use it, I want to _earn_ my place on the team instead of hoping that it'll still be there in the morning, that I won't be replaced with someone better. I finally use it and it hurts _me_.

"Wells – STAR Labs, Ronnie, Caitlin, all of it, was too good to be true. Being a metahuman was too good to be true. Having an ordinary life with an unbroken family was too good to be true." Tightly, Cisco says, "I knew from the minute I met her that Cynthia was the same, but I still wanted to try. I wanted to _try_ , Barry." A silent sob hiccups in his chest. Barry squeezes him gently. "I wanted to believe that _this time_ things would be different, that I'd get to keep this thing that I loved."

Sniffing, Cisco lifts a hand to his eyes and rubs them dry. "I'm not even surprised anymore, Barry. I'm just …" Hunching inward, tucking into Barry's hold, he finishes softly, "I'm just so tired of believing that it'll be _better_ next time."

Cisco falls silent, then. Barry holds onto him with one arm and the railing with the other. He's shaking harder now, and there are little hitching sobs to punctuate the quiet night. Huddling against the emotional storm, they stay quiet together, breathing together, and Cisco crushes a handful of Barry's shirt in his hand and still can't find peace.

At last, Barry dares to speak. "We love you." His own throat is tight, but he still insists, "We love you, Cisco. You made it here. _You_ survived. Other people might have helped, but they didn't walk in your shoes. They didn't endure everything you did. _They_ don't know what it's like to carry the mountain on your shoulders. And I'm so proud—" Here, even he cannot speak, but he presses on, determined. "I'm _so proud_ of you, Cisco. I wouldn't be alive, and neither would Caitlin or Harry or Joe or _Iris_ or any of the ten thousand people we've saved together, if it wasn't for you."

Cisco leans against him. Barry carries on, keeping his voice soft, for them alone. "I remember that night. I remember my back breaking in half like a snapped tree. I can still feel it—and I'm glad that I can, because it means I _remember_ that night. I survived it. I survived because you got Zoom. He was gonna win, but you stopped him in his tracks. _I_ couldn't do that, Cisco."

Shaking him gently, Barry says, "I _can't_ do this without you, Cisco. You give me a reason to wake up in the morning, to try harder when I'm ready to quit. You inspire me. You're our rock, the bedrock of the team, providing stability when I'm ungrounded, hope when I'm untethered. Where would we be without you? The suits – they're _amazing_ , Cisco, and I don't say that as much as I should. I'm alive because of your suits – I owe my life hundreds of times to their integrity, to these gifts that you constructed by hand. And there is so much love in those suits, Cisco. All of your technology reflects that love.

"We've failed to give that love back to you. _We've_ failed, Cisco – because we've let one of our best friends believe that he was somehow disposable, that he wasn't good enough for us. We've failed to value your input as it should be valued, to listen when you speak, to step in when you need us. We needed you, and you were there for us – but too often the same hasn't been true."

Tugging Cisco into a hug proper, Barry insists firmly, "We're gonna be here for you every day of the rest of your life. We're gonna be thankful that you're still with us to make us smile and keep us coming home at the end of the day. We're gonna be in the front row congratulating you on every achievement and in the back seat drinking a beer when things don't go our way. We're gonna let you be _you_ – angry, happy, sad, wherever you are, we're still gonna love you. You're family. You are family, and we will never forget that."

Face buried against Barry's shoulder, Cisco doesn't speak. Barry feels his hands flex against his back, grabbing and releasing handfuls of his shirt. Grazing his own hand up and down Cisco's back, he finishes softly, "I'm sorry that we weren't listening when you needed to talk. And I'm sorry that you're hurting. I'm so, so sorry, Cisco. But we're gonna survive this, together."

Stilling his hand, Barry rocks them a little, radiating Speed-warmth – Speed-warmth he wouldn't have if it wasn't for Cisco, an entire life of things he wouldn't _have_ without the man trembling in his arms, convinced that he is less than nothing to the team. Barry's heart twists, aching to somehow reach across the years and fix it all, knowing that he can't. They can only move forward. But move forward, they must.

Sniffling, Cisco pulls away gently, and Barry lets him go. Cisco reaches up to rub a tear-stained face, apologetically glancing at Barry's shoulder, but Barry doesn't care, redirecting his gaze out over the city. Laying both hands on the railing, Cisco mirrors him. They listen to the traffic noise and the irrepressible passage of time.

At last, Cisco says in a gravelly tone, "I want her to be happy."

Barry rests a hand on top of Cisco's and says nothing.

"I want – I wanted him to be happy, too," he adds thinly, and he doesn't need to clarify _who_. "I just – I want a good life, for them. For you, even." Laughing shakily, he adds, "That sounds so mean out loud. _Yes, even for you._ "

Squeezing Cisco's hand, Barry waits until the silence is long. "We're happy," he says, and he feels some of the tension seep out of Cisco, then. "And he was happy, too."

Together, standing guard over the city, they stand in the warm night. After a time, Cisco leans his head against Barry's shoulder. It's late, and they're both tired in different ways, but neither moves. Holding each other up. Holding onto each other.

"We're gonna help you be happy, too," Barry says at last.

Cisco nods a little.

"I promise," Barry says, and means it more than anything.

Cisco nods again, and Barry has the distinct and profoundly comforting sensation that he dares to believe it.


End file.
